Since she hadn’t been there long enough to know anyone at the holiday party, she’d spent most of it taking note of ways to cut costs at the next shindig. It was part of what Dolores had hired her to do, after all. Lauren thought they could dial back the sandwich platters since there were tons of leftovers, she figured a closed bar would be more money-saving and probably more responsible, and if there was already a Secret Santa she saw no reason for Dolores to separately give gift cards to each employee.
“Those come out of my own pocket, dear,” Dolores had said when she brought it up, patting her hand kindly.
But one of Lauren’s best—or worst, as in this case—qualities was her tenacity. For some reason, she had a hard time letting it go. She’d turned to the person next to her, who was piling his plate high with two each of the five different types of cookies. She hadn’t learned his name, and normally someone with that many tattoos would’ve intimidated her, but there was something about his eyes that had seemed kind.
“It makes no sense,” she said. “If you think about it, if everyone buys a twenty-dollar Secret Santa gift, and then they get a twenty-dollar gift card, doesn’t it all come out a wash? If the gift cards are going to mean something, why not cancel Secret Santa?”
“Bold move,” he said. “Running on a platform of cancel Secret Santa. How long have you worked here again?”
She’d felt her face heat. “Three days.”
He’d pointed a cookie at her. “Love your initiative, though,” he said. “Keep at it and by March we can get all the toilet paper down to one ply.”
He held the cookie in his mouth and walked away, still facing her, one hand holding his plate and the other holding up crossed fingers as though he were actually hopeful. The most infuriating thing was that his tone hadn’t even sounded sarcastic. It wasn’t until a full minute after he’d walked away that it hit Lauren that there’d been a spark in his eyes as he’d left, and it hadn’t been kindness. And a week later, she’d received her generous hundred-dollar gift card from Dolores along with everyone else, and a token coffee mug from Kiki as a belated Secret Santa present.
“This is a regift because my aunt gets me a new one every year,” Kiki had said. “So don’t feel bad that you didn’t get anything for anyone.”
“The holidays are kinda . . . intense around here, huh?”
Kiki shrugged. “Dolores thinks that we work so hard to make all our guests’ holidays special, so we deserve something special, too. She’s a little eccentric, but she’s a sweet boss. You’ll get used to it.”
“Ah.” Lauren ran one finger along the rim of the mug. It was white, printed with a rainbow and flowers and an aspirational quote that encouraged her to BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED! “It’s nice,” she said hesitantly. “That she arranges the Secret Santa thing and goes out of her way to get everyone in on it.”
“Oh, that’s all Asa,” Kiki had said. At Lauren’s questioning expression, she gestured to her shoulders, as if telling a stylist where to cut her own bleached strands. “Long hair? Tall? Tattoos? When it comes to Christmas, he doesn’t play. Secret Santa was totally his idea.”
The guy she’d vented to at the party. Great.
From that moment on, Lauren had always felt on the wrong foot with Asa, especially during the holiday season. Especially during the holiday parties. She didn’t even want to think about what had happened at last year’s.
Now, he was still watching her as she took her first sip of coffee from that same BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED! mug. There was a slight aftertaste to it that made her grimace, and she could’ve sworn she saw that corner of his mouth twitch. She’d been wondering why he seemed intent on hanging around, why he was paying her such close attention. As the aftertaste crystallized on her tongue—definitely something with vanilla—the pieces fell into place.
“You made your coffee before mine, didn’t you.”
He held up his mug in a cheers. “Not just a prop,” he said.
She took another tentative sip, her mouth turning down with the full impact of the flavor. “French vanilla.”
He’d done it on purpose. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did—the flavor from the K-cup before always bled into the next one, and Lauren couldn’t stand flavored coffee. This whole time he’d been helping her with the machine, he’d really just been setting her up.